


A Promise Made

by librarybooks



Series: Words Kept [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, IronDad and SpiderSon, Mentions of temporary character death, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Canon Fix-It, Precious Peter Parker, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Nightmares, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark is Good With Kids, Tony's a soft and worried dad, but everything is fine, may and tony are friends, the one where Peter comes back okay, this is here to make it better, underoos immediate sequel! eeeee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2019-11-18 02:29:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18111425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/librarybooks/pseuds/librarybooks
Summary: The war is over now. Tony forgets that sometimes.Or: the one where Peter comes back.





	A Promise Made

**Author's Note:**

> hi lovies, I'm baaaack! about the last chapter of underoos,, I'm sorry... but this will make it better, I hope (if you're here and you haven't read the previous fic, no worries! this oneshot can be read alone <3)
> 
> >>beta read by [Kels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSugarPlum),, honeybaby if I could give you the entire world I would. thank you.

Tony dreams in colors borrowed from the sea. They’re shades of deep blue, black, and purple, smudged like bruises. It’s turbulent when his eyes close. The shadows take form, sifting through Tony’s consciousness with cold fingers. It aches like winter, like flurries of snow leeching warmth from bodies and the bite of frozen metal.

He sees nothing, he hears nothing; behind the dark carousel of random thought, there’s only the vague awareness of who he is and what he’s lost. A tsunami overtakes him, enveloping him in the frigid sea, and it flushes Tony away.

He suffers through red dreams, too — oranges and yellows that fill him with sand, hot and dense. Grains scratch his insides with each breath, and Tony has forgotten what it feels like to have air in his lungs. He’s drowning, always drowning, in pits of quicksand and inky pools of water.

_Wake up._

The inflection reminds Tony of Rhodey, curt in how he expresses his affection.

_Wake up._

This time it sounds like Pepper, but it’s convoluted and warbled, like a damaged recording. It becomes more difficult for Tony to breathe.

_Wake up!_

He hears Peter’s voice, distant as a nighttime train. Tony reaches for him, calls out to him, but it’s quiet. The loneliness chokes him like a vice, and he thinks of the moment Peter disappeared. He feels the fear and devastating grief. He remembers the cold, red dirt on a barren planet.

There is no anchor to hold him to Earth; he’s run out of air.

Tony jerks out of his slumber with a strangled yell. He pants, each breath a desperate wheeze, as if he’d truly swallowed a mouthful of sand. A thin sheen of sweat covers his body, and his sheets cling to his legs like Saran wrap. Tony takes several moments to calm down before he extricates himself from the mess of blankets.

Peter isn’t here.

The reminder sends a shiver down his spine, and Tony passes a glance at Pepper, who’s still sleeping soundly beside him. He’s careful as he shifts to stand.

Tony leaves his slippers beside his bed as he pads out of his room. The tiled floor of the Avengers compound is cold under his feet, sharp and cutting like frost. Tony’s skin is electric, urgency thrumming through his body. He moves quickly to reach his destination.

The hallway before him is long and shadowed, illuminated only by the moon. It looks endless in the night, concealing multitudes beyond the veil, like doorways to other worlds. Tony can’t see the end of it, and he suffers through a sigh. It seems like a far fucking walk, and he questions his building design choices as he plods. The slap of his feet on the ground is rhythmic, each step accompanied by a memory.

 _One._ The clang of a golden gauntlet on Thor’s axe.

 _Two._ The metallic taste of blood on his tongue.

 _Three._ An emptiness in his chest, the inexorable maw of loss.

Tony’s lived through enough battles to know the repercussions. He’s no stranger to reliving old horrors, so the anxiety is familiar, but that doesn’t mean it’s welcome. Tony tries to envision balling up the fear and crushing it into the ground, spitting on it.

It offers little comfort.

The door Tony wants to reach isn’t far now, but he hesitates as he gets close. Fear and logic struggle for dominance in his brain, whispering promises of _you won’t find what you’re looking for_ and _he’s right there, just open it, just look_.

A headache blossoms within his skull, and Tony considers punching himself in the face. He shakes his head back and forth, dislodging the doubt in his mind, and grasps the doorknob. When he swings it open, he blinks once, then twice — just to be sure that he isn’t dreaming.

Peter is curled up in the bed, fast asleep. His blankets are barricaded around him in a nest, and he cuddles his pillow like a stuffed animal. His mouth is slung open as he snores, loud and halting like an old car engine. A strange pang strikes Tony’s heart, and he feels the urge to reach forward to make sure that Peter’s actually here, in tangible form.

It’s not the first time Tony’s doubted his perceptions of reality; he often forgets that the war is over. His nightmares keep it alive in his mind, as fresh as if it were yesterday. They’ve controlled him since the moment it ended, convincing him that nothing good exists anymore, even though the battle has been long since fought.

Any aspect of Tony’s life can be divided into parts, depending on which facet he’s exploring. It could be Before and After Pepper, romantically, or Before and After Peter, paternally; but the largest divider is, as for most people, Before and After Thanos.

Before and after the end.

Before everything was fixed, and then the moment it was. Tony remembers it like it’s tattooed on the insides of his eyelids: he sees the final battle, feels the adrenaline pumping through his veins, and the resulting crippling exhaustion after he expends all his energy and more. He can feel his lungs burning with exertion, and the surreal euphoria he experienced as Thanos fell.

Tony blinks and he’s there, roaring into the comms. He launches himself in his suit, but his stabilizers are damaged and he lurches through the air. Tony dips like the drop of a rollercoaster, or a plane in turbulence, and he hates it. It feels like falling — he’s no stranger to the sensation, not after all this time; still, he’ll never get used to the flash of panic, and the way his breath catches in his chest. No matter how many hours he spends in the air in his one-man war machine, it reminds him of memories best left untouched, like crash landing into a desert and falling through the vast emptiness of space.

Albeit something Tony is loathe to admit, it terrifies him. But even though there’s anxiety niggling at the back of his mind every time he puts the damn suit on, it’s nothing compared to his fear of never seeing Peter again.

Tony flies upward, and FRIDAY’s voice warns him of the malfunction in his stabilizers just as he feels his flight pattern falter. His left boot misfires, and Tony’s stomach rises to his throat as he drops a foot or two in the air. He holds out his arms, trying to balance like a child on roller skates. “FRIDAY, pull it together, will you?”

“Sorry, boss.” The AI’s musical voice isn’t enough to tame Tony’s impatience. “This suit has taken heavy fire. It would be best to replace —”

“Not now.”

“Alright, but I advise against —”

“Not _now_ , FRI.”

“Okay, boss. Be aware of your left boot and proceed carefully.”

Tony is not careful.

He can’t be bothered, because they’re free — everyone in the soul stone, everyone lost, they’re _free_. And Peter is there, solidifying like everyone else, and nothing is more important than reaching him.

“No can do,” Tony mutters, and he’s speeding through the air again, a human missile, tracing for thermal heat patterns on his retinal display.

There’s countless bodies reforming, millions of them, bursting out of dust like an ancient spell. They’re scattered and confused in drifts, some native to where they’ve reappeared, some foreign.

Tony scans the crowds, but he sees no sign of Peter, Strange, or any of those weird aliens he’d had the pleasure of meeting on Titan. He worries briefly they’ll be there, far away, but no — if beings are reforming on their home planets, then Peter will be here. Besides, it’s not like Tony can take off on an interstellar journey in his damaged suit.

Searching through the crowds — as much as he’s able to, anyway — proves to be fruitless. Tony could try tracking Peter’s Iron Spider armor, but he has no way of knowing whether the kid is still wearing it. If Peter’s in public, he could be exposed.

Tony should probably try going to May Parker’s.

He ignores the warning beep in his thrusters, forcing them into overdrive as he flies towards Queens. The city passes beneath him in a blur of grey, and it only takes a few minutes to reach the familiar neighborhood.

The structure of Tony’s suit feels strangely fragile as he touches down on a nearby building. Bits of titanium alloy litter his landing spot, but he doesn’t care.

Tony’s maneuverability is already limited in the Iron Man suit, but with his stabilizers malfunctioning, it’s impossible to move efficiently. He steps out of it and promptly stumbles, the full impact of his battle-sustained injuries taking effect. It hurts — _he_ hurts, but it’s survivable. Anything is survivable, after what he’s gone through.

Tony abandons the suit with an order for automatic shutdown should anyone else touch it. He lumbers across the roof, forcing the door open. He takes the stairs slowly, tottering like a drunkard, or perhaps like he’s just weathered a war. It feels like an eternity has passed by the time he reaches the floor where Peter lives.

 _Lived,_ he reminds himself. Past tense.

Tony’s breathing heavily when he stands before the door, hand poised to knock. He realizes somewhat belatedly that he doesn’t know what to do if someone answers.

Hug whoever it is? Apologize? Both?

Probably both. There might even be tears.

Tony raps his knuckles on the doorframe — twice, three times, before letting his arm fall.

Nothing happens for a moment. Then the light streaming beneath the door lengthens as it opens, just a crack. There’s a rush of movement, and a familiar curtain of chocolate brown hair obscures Tony’s vision. He’s being grabbed, pulled in, and arms wrap around his shoulders. In his ear, he hears a small gasp that sounds like a whimper.

It’s May. Tony’s arms encircle her in return, and she squeezes him tighter.

He’s so happy to see her.

When May pulls away, she meets Tony’s eyes. The usually warm hazel is dull, clouded with both sadness and exhaustion. May sees the question in them, the fear, and she nods once before opening the door wider.

He’s sprawled on the couch, asleep. Peter looks just as he did when Tony lost him, bloodied and dirty but _alive_ , and Tony chokes on a sob that he hadn’t realized was stuck in his throat.

Peter’s suit is the same as it was when Tony gave it to him on the spaceship, only slightly more battered. He has scratches on his face, still raw from the battle on Titan. Tony takes another step into the house, his heartbeat loud in his ears. Peter stirs when he hears the noise, and his lashes flutter upwards.

Tony’s cheeks are damp, and his eyes blur. The stream of tears is endless, torrential as a rainforest storm. Peter sits up, slow and steady, and Tony moves instinctively. He dives forward, and Peter’s arms are already open to embrace him.

As Tony wraps his arms around him, the kid hiccups a sob. Peter’s tears wet Tony’s shoulder as he hugs him back. He tries to speak, but it’s littered with sniffles and and sharp intakes of breath. “I — I’m s-sorry, Mr. S-Stark.”

Tony hushes him with a soft murmur. It means nothing and everything, in that moment. It’s a comfort, and a promise, a quiet assurance that the worst of it is over.

Peter trembles, and Tony pulls him in closer. His grip is tight — probably tighter than it should be, given Peter’s injuries — but he has to prove to himself that this is _real_. He has to know without a shadow of a doubt that Peter’s alive, and he’s not going away again.

“No,” Tony says at last, when his body has stopped quivering and his grasp on the boy becomes slack. “I’m sorry.”

Peter’s sobs begin to fade to soft crying as his breathing calms down, and he burrows his head deeper in Tony’s chest. Warmth blossoms there, and Tony feels whole for the first time since he collapsed on a red planet light years away.

His next words are quiet. “I’m sorry I didn’t save you.”

“S-stop that.” Peter’s voice is muffled in the fabric of Tony’s shirt. He withdraws slightly to look up, and his eyes are red-rimmed but bright. “You kept your promise, didn’t you?”

Tony’s heart constricts. It thumps solidly in his breast, a gentle reminder that he’s truly alive, and he swallows past the lump in his throat. Tony squeezes the kid’s arm. “Did I?”

“‘I promise to make everything alright again,’” Peter quotes. He says it with conviction, as if he spent his brief stint in the afterlife reciting it like a mantra. A grin stretches across his face, small but growing in size the longer it’s there. “You did it.”

Tony missed that smile. He pulls the boy into his chest again, and he doesn’t let go.

 

When Tony opens his eyes, he’s no longer lost in the throes of memory and instead standing in front of Peter’s room. The Avengers compound is quiet, and buttery squares of low light from the hallway shine behind him. He brushes underneath his lashes with his fingertips; his cheeks are wet.

Tony heaves a sharp inhale and braces his hand on the door. The hinges creak, a small little squeak like a mouse. Tony tenses and steps backward, his shoulders rising like a startled cat. The bed sheets rustle as Peter shifts in his bed, and the kid lets out a tired groan.

“Mm — uh, Mr. St — Mr. Stark?” Peter slurs, voice heavy and drunken with sleep. The blankets fall backward as he sits up, rubbing the exhaustion from his eyes. “’S that you?”

Tony freezes, hand poised on the knob. He breathes out a sigh — just because he has insomnia and nightmares and whatever the fuck else doesn’t mean he should make the kid suffer too. He takes a tentative step into the room, reluctant to rouse him further. “Yeah, Pete. It’s me.”

Peter’s brows are furrowed, but he relaxes and slumps back into his blankets. “Oh, good. Was a li’l worried, too tired to —” He punctuates his statement with a yawn. “Too tired to fight crime right now.”

Damn kid, always on the job. He’s more proactive than some other Avengers Tony can name (cough, Hawkeye). The corners of Tony’s lips curl upwards, and he approaches Peter’s bedside. “No crime to fight here.” He raises his hand and hesitates only a moment before he rests it on the kid’s head. “Sorry for waking you.”

“Mm, ’s fine,” Peter leans into the touch before he collapses onto his pillow. “I'm... Uh, real tired, though. Aunt May will be mad if I’m — if I’m late to class again. G’nna doze, if that’s okay.”

Tony bites back a laugh. He tousles Peter’s hair, already mussed from sleeping. His fingers get tangled in the knots. “Yeah. Of course it’s okay. You’ve got big college things to do in the morning.”

Peter’s eyes close as Tony speaks, and the worry lines in his forehead disappear. Tony takes his hand away with a fond smile, and the kid mumbles a few nonsensical words.

Tony turns back to the door, where moonlight bleeds across the threshold. The hallway is illuminated from it, the glow stretching across the floor to caress the kid’s face. Tony passes another glance over his shoulder before he moves to leave, but a soft murmur from Peter gives him pause.

“G’night, dad. Love you.”

Tony’s heart stills, just for a second, before reigniting in an inferno. His body warms, and he’s overcome by a sense of rightness. The relationship he and Peter share is something he’s understood for awhile now, since long before the war. He didn’t need to lose Peter to know he loves him; everything he knows, everything he feels — it’s been there for years.

Pepper might give him hell for it, but Tony’s come a long way in terms of accepting his emotions. It takes time for him to express them, because Tony’s as stubborn as a bull, but he gets there. He always does.

Peter shifts under his blankets, already asleep, so Tony whispers his admission into the night. “I love you too, kid.”

For Tony, there has always been a dichotomy between science and mysticism. Even when he was introduced to the other Avengers, some wielding powers outside of a human being’s normal realm of understanding, he’d chalked it up to a strange brand of science he himself had yet to comprehend. He fled the idea of magic like a patient from a hospital room after the delivery of a brutal diagnosis, because there is nothing, Tony thinks, that cannot be explained away by science.

But then there was Strange, with his fucking cape, and Wanda, glowing red; there was Thanos, and the soul stone; and there’s Peter, with wide brown eyes and a heart just as open, and Tony thinks maybe — just maybe — a sort of magic exists. Or perhaps it’s pure love, because that’s a special magic all on its own. It makes his heart feel lighter, his smiles come easier. It’s hard to imagine a time before Peter.

Amusement tugs Tony’s lips up as he hears the kid drowsily mutter something about churros. He closes Peter’s door before he can make a noise to wake him again, and he turns to face the long hallway. The moon has risen higher, basking him in her shine, and the brightness makes the walk seem shorter. Unlike before, Tony can see the end of it, the light at the end of the tunnel.

Tony pads back to his bedroom, reveling in a sense of peace he hasn’t felt in a long time. His bed creaks as he settles, careful not to disturb Pepper, still slumbering away. As he draws the covers back to nestle under them, he closes his eyes.

For the first time in months, when Tony sleeps, he does not dream.

**Author's Note:**

> there.... boys safe and happy and tucked into bed.  
> I don't think I'm done with this series yet, because I reaaally want to write more father & son shenanigans. I'll brainstorm some plots, and if you have any ideas that you'd like me to write, shoot me a message on [twitter](https://twitter.com/dekusneakers?lang=en)  
> or [tumblr](https://othersideofthe-universe.tumblr.com)! thank you so much for your patience and your kindness, it means so much to me. I love you all!


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